TorontoChelsea

From what we've all heard, Roman wants "sexy football" which implies more than just offensive football. When Ancelotti was sacked, Chelsea were in second place and we had scored the 3rd most goals in the Premier League. He was sacked because Chelsea weren't playing the type of exciting football Roman wanted. Mourinho's teams have never played sexy football and our best players of the previous/older generation (Drogba, Lampard, Terry) were not as exciting as Roman would have wanted. Which is the worry I have. Sexy football doesn't win.

That's considering it's even possible to play Roman's idea of sexy football and win. I think this is all a waste of time and money. Winnings is what matters. Winning is sexy. (Was anyone ever bored when we were winning under Mourinho and Ancelotti? Were you bored when we won the CL last year?)

I disagree with you because Lampard was excellent in that position last year for about 20 games. Chelsea are 2-0 in the league with Lampard starting in that position this year. Lampard was one of our best players last season over-all. I'm also sick of everyone picking on Lampard no matter what. He played poorly today but so did pretty much everyone on the team. I don't know where this idea that Chelsea played so brilliantly against Newcastle comes from anyway. We were barely able to create any chances all game. We played fine and deserved to win but the same e leacould have been said in our games against Reading and WBA. Also, you didn't say "Lampard shouldn't be a key player anymore", you said "Lampard should be a sub every other game" which is ridiculous.

But Falcao also gets himself into areas where he can get scoring chances. Torres is awful at that. I'm not blaming Torres for the loss at all, but service is a two-way street. Torres expects the ball to be played at his feet in the centre of the box and that's really not going to happen very often. You have to create chances in other places/ways as well.

So, let me get this straight. You didn't watch the game but are still blaming the loss entirely on Lampard? In other words, the logical progression goes something like this: 1) We lost 2) Therefore it was Lampard's fault 3) Therefore Lampard shouldn't play anymore I could see last year how he was already becoming the scapegoat, but this year, it's been taken to another level.

It's exhausting trying to deal with the near-constant immense overreactions. We need more posters with long-term perspective. (Not the "what a bad pass, he needs to go. We need to go buy some 19 year old who is really good on FIFA12. He's worth 50M pounds easy" stuff.). We are going to play 60 or so matches this year. We are top of the league right now. We aren't likely too finish there, but this is a transition year. Expecting every single match to be a win is ridiculous. Expecting every single player to play well every single game is ridiculous. Take a deep breath.

I'm not saying he's going to be a bad player or anything, just don't understand the excitement over a player like Remy. Not a fabulous track record and he'll be 26 in January.

15-20 goals a season in the Premier League every year IS a great player. Look at Torres. We all talk about his track record and he hit the 15-20 goal mark exactly twice in the Premier League. Rooney has gone 15+ goals in a season 3 times, Van Persie, twice.

The point is, who knows? I think it's unlikely he'll ever become one of the best strikers in the world, but I think he could be a very good, even great, player for the next decade.

Neymar was named best player in Brazil last year, best forward in Brazil for two straight seasons, won the golden boot in two straight seasons, made the Brazilian league team of the year two years in a row, was best player in a boatload of tournaments, and a number of other awards. And he's 20. Kakuta is a year older and has accomplished exactly nothing up to this point. He had one five-game span with Dijon where he looked good but subsequently got benched. Oscar is a much better prospect than Kakuta at this point, but still has produced a fraction of what Neymar has despite being the same age (actually, a few months older). He's never won any personal awards and his potential is based on projection more than anything. I think he's likely to be a good player and Neymar could flop, but at this point in their careers, there isn't a team in the world that wouldn't take Neymar ahead of either of those two players in a heart-beat.

It's fine for the Spurs, but Dembele makes no sense for Chelsea. Anyway, we can't buy every single player. Our midfield is set for this season. The only potential buy is another striker.

I don't think sources should be banned, but I wish people would stop posting them all the time. They make certain threads (like this one) almost unreadable.

Kitchener? Why did you move to Kitchener? It's only normal to hate it there.

I don't care about big names, (in fact, I usually think they are overpriced) but I care about quality. Taison is 24 years old (and turns 25 in January) and not exactly setting the Ukrainian league on fire. He's not really all that young, and he doesn't have a single international cap to his name at any level. Despite playing very attacking positions including striker, he had 2 goals in 23 games in the league last season. I just don't see how that would possibly translate into success in the Premier League. You can't score in Ukraine, but you're going to score in England? Buying Brazilians just because they are Brazilian makes no sense.

Right now, that would be 43M pounds. It's high, but a couple of things 1)Clubs will often sell below release clauses. If someone came in at 40M, I think that would get it done. I think someone will 2) More interestingly, what if the Euro tanks? It's a real possibility and that would make all sorts of release clauses very odd. What if 55M Euros in a year is like 10M pounds?

That was brilliant! And Chelsea won and Le Saux didn't get a card. Always like Le Saux, and that was some sweet payback

It's the reality of being a big club. You just aren't going to bring as much talent through because you buy so much more of it. Even Bertrand who looks pretty good so far, is he part of the future of the club? Probably, but when Cole retires, the manager, whoever it is could also decide to go out and spend 15M pounds buying a proven LB from somewhere else. If Chelsea have a hole at central defence in a couple of years, they won't turn to some inexperienced 20-year old, they'll go out and buy someone. Really, the only way to make the club as a young player is to go on loan and look good and then come back and work your way into the lineup as a sub. That's fine, it is what it is, but I wish people wouldn't expect so much from our young players.

He needs 11 more Premier League goals to pass Robbie Fowler. I don't hate a lot of players, but that guy was a mother^$%^# (especially the way he taunted Le Saux who was a class act).

People are always overly optimistic about young players making an impact. The truth is that, chances are not one of those young defenders will ever play a meaningful role with us.

Obviously, you can't chose, but I'm just making clear where my priorities lie. I really only care about four trophies and of those four, two more than any other. This is a trophy like the Community Shield, a trophy in name only.

It's actually a problem (not the tiki-taka which will likely never happen, but the free-role). Both players are physically occupying mostly the same space on the pitch right now. It means that we are a very narrow attacking team right now. We need to be able to go wide with some success at some point.

What's he going to say? "We don't care at all"? "This is is a ridiculous tournament simply to make some money"? "Everyone knows that the winner of the Champions League is the best team in Europe and one match won't change that"? I'd rather win than not win of course, but I'd take a single win in the league or in the Champions League over this match. Chelsea are champions of Europe. Athletico are Champions of the second tier of teams in Europe.

But other companies generally don't sign contracts with their workers. If they do, they can't violate them.

Which is the way it should be. If you a sign a contract, you should be bound by it. Chelsea signed the contract and they have to pay him.

Except if you look at our players average positioning, it was actually a pretty typical 4-2-3-1 and it has been all season. Our centrebacks play deep with Mikel being the next deepest and then Cole, Lampard/Meireles, and Ivanovic being around the middle of the park. Then our 3 attacking midfielders being up front and Torres in front of them. The one issue we've had so far is that both Mata and Hazard both play centrally so whichever flank one of them is supposed to be covering is always vacated.